STEP ONE: Toy Soldiers, Gourd Sould YA!

I make tapes. I don't limit myself. Not mix tapes, or albums either. Tapes made unique as they're being recorded. One of my favorite ways of making tapes is to record drums being fed through the pedals, with one mic hanging and one mic in the kick, other stuff feeding in too, depending, recording that tape, putting it on the computer, then feeding the computer through another tape deck and that through a 4 track and that into a tape recorder. By mixing different things, and "playing" the middle tape deck with fast forward and reverse and pause (which gives a slower, more controlled FF) as well as stop and play, which blank out the audio coming from the 4 track for a beat, each tape is completely unique and usually custom made for somebody, with them in mind the whole time. This is what the first step usually looks like



The tapes I record onto are bought cheap at thrift stores, recovered if i like them, and selected based on their covers. If the cover is blank on one side, i buy it. Once home and listening back to the MASTERPIECE i put on that tape, i turn the cover inside out and draw a new one for the person i'm making it for.
Ask me for one, I will be glad to make it for you.

Where's my mouth?

I started practicing with Tim o'er here, and we're using this mixer he found in an interesting, useful way....
He plugs in his laptop, I plug in the end and the middle of my pedal chain, then the left out goes to the speaker, the right out goes to the other end of my FeedbacK headset. By panning, we can select what goes out and what goes back in, and equalize it on the way. Adjusting the treble, mid, and bass of the feedback changes the pitch and timbre. That part really comes into its own starting at 5 minutes into this video you might want to have started playing already:


Nice entrance Daby!
Sooo, that starts out with a low delay oscillation, and a higher one at the end of the chain getting eaten in a pattern that belongs to sound waves. Just to be clear, there are no drum machines or synths or any input at all in this one. The consistent pitch changes are coming from a flanger and a tremolo working closely in sync with eachother.
Just after 7 min, I bring the wah in. It does it's job adding to the pitch shifting in a similar but smoother way than the mixer.
At 8:40 I start using the other delay to remix the beat.
At 9:15 I leave that for shifting the in pitch of the first delay.
Then, at 9:30 I bring my head in to do all 3 for a bit.
round it out with some power chords, and you've got yourself a 13 minute drone noise epic! Rather short for that kind of thing, so sit up, relax and enjoy!


My setup is shifted from what i'm used to, with the fuzz getting exiled to the very end of the chain. I switch between the end and the pre-delay/tremolo/fuzz signal being the source for feedback.

Dub Let It Pass Me By

Tonight I'm doing a lounge performance. I'm playing on a bill with Danbert Nobacon of the Chumbawamba collective. It should be a good night, video forthcoming.
One of the songs I play is "Don't Let It Pass Me By" which is about a bus, tattoos, zombies, and sports. I originally recorded it with a trombone chorus on the tape in the foreground. Tonight I will play my current favorite version. Then I was messing with timing and came across this version here:




You can hear where the delay happens at the beginning, with a slight Eb oscillation in the other delay popping in between with the FdbK headset.
At around 2 minutes, I start arpeggiating up triads at 2/3rds the speed of the delay so it ends up arpeggiating down the triad three to a delay time.
For example, say delay time has a length of 3dt. If I play Ab at 1dt, C at 3dt, and Eb at 5dt (which is equivalent to 2dtmod3).
starting at 2dt, we then have Eb, C, Ab, which is the Ab, C, Eb triad in the other direction, but twice as fast. Hard to sing to, I must say, since each phrase kicks in on the third beat of me playing the triad. It's so hard to wait! More timing tricks forthcoming, but more mindbending. I think tempos at 5/8ths of the delay time is involved, we'll have to see when I get a chance.

If YOU get a chance, come see Charmaine's Names tonight at the Greenline. Don't be a baby, it's just West Philly, baby!

Feel better Zach! Here's some Bower Aide.

   Recorded quiet for a reason I'll investigate later. More importantly, is a song I wrote for FeedbacK headset.



   In grade school I wanted to be in a band called "FeedbacK" because it was my favorite sound and it had "db" in the middle, which is a nice possibly symmetrical way to write the first <=> ( ) or inner <=> [ ] intials of my name, (D)avi[d] [(B)]yrne

   In reality, it's what I call this headset whose mic and speaker signals are sent to opposite ends of my pedals, feedback at a pitch with harmonics in A, I think.

   The pitch of that feedback is adjusted by the tone setting on the Fuzz, the frequency of the delay, the endurance of the delay times, distortion/fuzz being on or off, the variations in tremolo at a specific depth, and an octave down pitch shifter that kicks in early on, after a chorus effect helps sweep the pitch in the intro.

Welcome to my Basement

This is a somewhat usual setup. I have multiple inputs going through a DD-7 digital delay, a FZ-3 Fuzz, ME-30 Multi Effects pedal (the one I'm hitting the most in this video), DD-6 Digital delay, and Pulsar Tremolo.
The inputs are a microphone, which is only adding flavor in this piece; a "FeedbacK headset" which is just this earphone/microphone jawn that I spliced the signal of, so the mic is feeding into the pedals through the "Right" channel of the mixer (so I can turn it on and off by switching the mixer from mono to stereo), and the earphones are sourced from the tremolo's second outplug; and a radio on a string.
The main tones in this piece are coming from cranking the feedback of the delay at a high speed so it generates analog electronic tones, much like how a synth operates. By analog, I mean it is creating a real pitch by sending a signal at the frequency of audible sound. Admittedly, at the end of this video, the sound is lower than the recording microphone could pick up. But you can feel it, can't you? It's there, affecting the other pitches.
This is what I do whenever I can, look at me!